These words were said as Daniel had just re-entered the room, and he stopped and asked, ‘Where to?’ ‘To a Whiteboy village called Cruhan, some ten miles off, close to an old castle I have been sketching.’ ‘Do you mean to go there to-morrow?’ asked he, half-carelessly; but not waiting for her answer, and as if fully preoccupied, he turned and left the room. CHAPTER XXXV A DRIVE AT SUNRISE The little basket-carriage in which Nina made her excursions, and which courtesy called a phaeton, would scarcely have been taken as a model at Long Acre. A massive old wicker-cradle constituted the body, which, from a slight inequality in the wheels, had got an uncomfortable ‘lurch to port,’ while the rumble was supplied by a narrow shelf, on which her foot-page sat _dos à dos_ to herself--a position not rendered more dignified by his invariable habit of playing pitch-and-toss with himself, as a means of distraction in travel. Except Bob, the sturdy little pony in the shafts, nothing could be less schooled or disciplined than Larry himself. At sight of a party at marbles or hopscotch, he was sure to desert his post, trusting to short cuts and speed to catch up his mistress later on. As for Bob, a tuft of clover or fresh grass on the roadside were temptations to the full as great to him, and no amount of whipping could induce him to continue his road leaving these dainties untasted. As in Mr. Gill’s time, he had carried that important personage, he had contracted the habit of stopping at every cabin by the way, giving to each halt the amount of time he believed the colloquy should have occupied, and then, without any admonition, resuming his journey. In fact, as an index to the refractory tenants on the estate, his mode of progression, with its interruptions, might have been employed, and the sturdy fashion in which he would ‘draw up’ at certain doors might be taken as the forerunner of an ejectment. The blessed change by which the county saw the beast now driven by a beautiful young lady, instead of bestrode by an inimical bailiff, added to a popularity which Ireland in her poorest and darkest hour always accords to beauty; and they, indeed, who trace points of resemblance between two distant peoples, have not failed to remark that the Irish, like the Italians, invariably refer all female loveliness to that type of surpassing excellence, the Madonna. Nina had too much of the South in her blood not to like the heartfelt, outspoken admiration which greeted her as she went; and the ‘God bless you--but you are a lovely crayture!’ delighted, while it amused her in the way the qualification was expressed.